No Man's Sky and a procedurally generated universe

It's not possible to account for quantum mechanics with randomness.

It reminds me of Meillassoux's correlationism. I'm in the middle of reading his After Finitude, so I'll have to post some more later, but Meillassoux definitely has ideas about digitalization, ancestrality, and what have you.

Reply to Michael

The analogy would only hold if the universe is a computer program. That begs the question as to what does it run on or in, and who wrote it.

One answer might be that the physical world is a program running in the spiritual world; which would be in accordance with the Buddhist idea that the the world is created by collective Karma.

Quoting Michael

With a complex algorithm and a single seed an entire universe (264 planets) and everything in it is accounted for (although obviously not generated). It is predetermined what you will find if you fly off into the distance – even though that distant thing doesn't actually "exist" yet.

Interesting article. But it does say that further random seeds are being generated all the time. Now it then tries to backtrack and argue that this is still deterministic because the original seed is the source of the pseudo-random generation of new seeds. And yet - if the principle of indifference does apply in the program - then there is a constant generation of randomness, for all practical purposes.

Plus of course there is the human making decisions when playing the game. So the gamer is outside the "procedure" as the critical source of unpredictability.

So the model kind of captures reality in imagining a few basic laws that get kicked along by randomised variables being plug in to generate the actual dynamics.

But there are big chunks of reality missing - like entropy. There is no energy cost, speed of light restrictions, decay, and much else in the model. So the model represents a very thin view of physical structure.

The clunky level of randomness and interaction being modeled is illustrated by...

Minor adjustments to the source code can cause mountains to unexpectedly turn into lakes, species to mutate, or objects to lose the property of collision and plummet to the center of a planet. “Something as simple as altering the color of a creature,” Murray noted, “can cause the water level to rise.”

So the major thing is that this world is driven from a single point of view and does not reflect a god's eye coherent point of view. It generates "more world" from wherever you have got to in the game's structure - so incorporates a local personal history. But the real world incorporates a global history in generating its every next step.

That is what makes it possible for there to be chameleons that change their colour without it destablising plate tectonics. The constraints that form the real world have a hierarchical organisation which makes it meaningfull whether we are talking about universal conditions baked in generally from the first moment of the Big Bang or instead the very arbitrary choices a human is free to make when deciding whether to shoot or sit back and watch computer generated aliens on imaginary planets.

[quote=John]The analogy would only hold if the universe is a computer program. That begs the question as to what does it run on or in, and who wrote it.[/quote]

I don't think it needs to have been "written" by anyone. Who wrote the rule that says when two particles meet they interact in this sort of way? Unless you're a theist, you'd just say that this is just how things behave. And so by the same token, one might say that this just is the sort of thing that is rendered during an observation.

And you might as well ask what an electron "runs on". There might be some pre-electron architecture on which an electron is run, and so there might be some pre-rendering architecture on which a tree is rendered (when observed). Or it might be that the electron is fundamental, and so it might be that the rendered tree (when observed) is fundamental.

The analogy isn't meant to suggest that a real world might be exactly like a computer program. It's meant to suggest that a real world might behave in the same sort of way as a computer program where the objects and events that we see in it only exist and occur during the observation (the rendering) and need not also exist and occur prior to the observation. The regularity (and intersubjectivity) of it can be explained without requiring realist metaphysics (where the things that are seen to exist and occur also exist and occur when not seen).

You wouldn't say of a multiplayer game "if you both turn your characters around then you'll see a tree, therefore there must really be a tree behind your characters" and so you need not say of the real world "if you both turn around then you'll see a tree, therefore there must really be a tree behind you". Unless for there to really be a tree behind you (or your characters) just is that you would see one if you (or your characters) turned around (so rather than the former explaining the latter, the two are the same), but then unperceived existence is a counterfactual experience that obtains even under idealism, and so this wouldn't amount to realism.

[quote=apokrisis]So the major thing is that this world is driven from a single point of view and does not reflect a god's eye coherent point of view. It generates "more world" from wherever you have got to in the game's structure - so incorporates a local personal history. But the real world incorporates a global history in generating its every next step.[/quote]

This is what I'm questioning. Is it necessary that a real world incorporates a global history? Or is it metaphysically possible for a real world to behave in the same sort of way where "more world" is generated from a single point of view?

And if it's metaphysically possible, is it possible for such a world to be empirically indistinguishable from our world, or would there be some observable difference that we use to determine whether or not our world is such a world?

This is what I'm questioning. Is it necessary that a real world incorporates a global history? Or is it metaphysically possible for a real world to behave in the same sort of way where "more world" is generated from a single point of view?

So it seems possible if your existence is just a computer simulation. But if this about a material reality, what could generate the level of accumulated material history that we observe. Why would a real world have to fake a history - like you dig in the ground and find the mineralised bones of dinosaurs?

Sure you might say some magical process just generates stuff as far as your eye can see. But why would it fake layers of entropic history rather than just generate shiny new untouched stuff?

We account for our world in the way it actually seems to be - which is historically conditioned. If this alternative way of making worlds is always making new stuff, it adds considerable implausibility that it would go to the trouble of make the new stuff look "suitably old".

Quoting apokrisis

Why would a real world have to fake a history - like you dig in the ground and find the mineralised bones of dinosaurs?

I didn't mean to suggest that a real world would have a fake history. I meant to suggest that (in this hypothetical world) the bones we see when we dig don't exist before we see them; instead what "exists" is the "function" that determines that when we dig in a certain spot we will see bones.

I didn't mean to suggest that a real world would have a fake history. I meant to suggest that (in this hypothetical world) the bones we see when we dig don't exist before we see them; instead what "exists" is the "function" that determines that when we dig in a certain spot we will see bones.

How is making weathered dinosaur bones not faking an entropic history?

Sure I accept that your argument is that the bones are only made at the very instant they need to be struck by our spade. But it is the same issue as for creationists. Why go to the extra trouble of building in the look of a history if this is an essentially a-historic world creating process?

It seems illogical for such a world to have a reason to create a look of history in contradiction of what it actually is as a "create it as you go" kind of world.

Reply to Michael

But that "function" would have to be an elaborate program. How could it be plausible that such a thing, posited to be analogous with computer programs that we write only infinitely more complex, exist without having been written?

Reply to John You might as well ask how the rules that govern how the material world behaves under metaphysical realism can exist without having been written.

It's just a fact that the world behaves in this way. Whether you want to say that the things we see exist when we don't see them or that the things we see only exist when we see them but that there is some underlying architecture that determines what we see doesn't make a difference on this point.

Reply to apokrisis You seem to be suggesting that a history is only real if it satisfies realist metaphysics. But that's wrong. A real history is whatever history actually happens. If the history that actually happens is one of a function with a variable time seed that determines what someone sees then that is the real history, and so wouldn't be fake.

All you're really saying is that this hypothetical world (and its history) isn't a realist one. I know that. What I'm asking is whether such a world is metaphysically possible and whether it would be empirically indistinguishable from our world.

What I'm asking is whether such a world is metaphysically possible and whether it would be empirically indistinguishable from our world.

Well my point - again - is that the existence of a historical aspect to this reality would be one kind of empirical evidence against it being the case.

So I am granting your indistinguishability claim - we can't tell if things were always there or generated as we go along.

But then given that, if this world has a look of history, then that still counts as empirical evidence against it being generated.

Given two options - a metaphysics that is consistent with what we experience, and one that would be in contradiction - then we have a reason to prefer the consistent story. And that is the one where the appearance of history is evidence of actual history (just as a lack of apparent history would be evidence in favour of a "generate as you go" ontology).

[quote=apokrisis]Well my point - again - is that the existence of a historical aspect to this reality would be one kind of empirical evidence against it being the case.

So I am granting your indistinguishability claim - we can't tell if things were always there or generated as we go along.

But then given that, if this world has a look of history, then that still counts as empirical evidence against it being generated.

Given two options - a metaphysics that is consistent with what we experience, and one that would be in contradiction - then we have a reason to prefer the consistent story. And that is the one where the appearance of history is evidence of actual history (just as a lack of apparent history would be evidence in favour of a "generate as you go" ontology).[/quote]

But the "look of history" is also given in a computer game like No Man's Sky. You see something move towards your character, you turn your character around, wait a while, turn it back, and the thing has reached your character. It doesn't then mean that there was a thing moving towards your character (in the realist sense) when your character's back was turned.

You can't use something as evidence of A rather than B if that thing is also entailed by B. So given that this "look of history" is entailed by a first-person procedurally generated universe it can't be evidence of a realist world.

Reply to Michael Just address my actual argument. Would a generated world more naturally generate what is contemporary or what is historic?

Reply to apokrisis That depends on the underlying procedure. If it's one with an algorithm that generates more contemporary stuff than historic stuff then it's more likely to generate contemporary stuff, otherwise it's more likely to generate historic stuff.

Reply to Michael So you just won't answer my question about naturalness and the expectations we can rightfully derive from such an assumption. Bad faith.

Reply to apokrisis I did answer your question. But your question is like asking "would an equation more naturally give a negative integer or a positive integer?". The only possible answer is "depends on what the equation is".

Reply to Michael Bullshit. My question was not about some arbitrary programmer's choice but about what would be most self consistent.

And when equations produce positive and negative roots, we know to throw the negative away when it can't make physical sense. So yeah, a naturalness test does get applied.

Reply to Michael

You're missing the point, which is that you are wanting to draw an analogy between reality and a computer program, but unwilling to acknowledge that the most significant thing about a computer program is that it has been intentionally programmed to be the way it is.

Algorithms in computer programs are created by programmers. If you posit there might be an algorithm that determines that when we dug somewhere we find fossils, implying that those fossils in no way existed prior to our digging, then your position requires an explanation for the existence of the algorithm.

Yeah, I definitely think some of the classical transcendental idealists could be read as claiming that the universe is procedurally generated based on a starting facticity (roughly, the 'program,' the 'thing in itself') combined with a generation of the empirical world 'on the fly' as the knower's faculties come into contact with it.

Though these questions were already effectively raised by older video games. In a 1980's side-scroller, is what is off the right side of the screen 'there?' Does it 'exist?' When talking about the game, we talk as if it does, but also recognize a sense in which it doesn't, in which it's nothing more than a constellation of moving pixels programmed to appear depending on certain game states arrived at by certain inputs. There is still a procedure of generation, it's just far less variable because far more spelled out. What you can take the old transcendental idealists to be saying is that roughly, life is like a video game in this way. The sense in which the unseen world is 'there' is the sense in which the material off the right side of the screen is 'there.

Reply to The Great Whatever How would the transcendental idealist or simulationist deal with the fact that accidents happen all the time? I could get struck by lightning and never see the bolt before it kills me.

Of course it's not a big deal if you accept a kind of primary vs secondary quality distinction. The bolt of lightning would have primary qualities regardless of whether or not I perceive the bolt.

But transcendental idealism seems to argue that what we do not perceive is in some kind of "proto" state, or a state of pure potentiality and no effable characteristics.

Quoting The Great Whatever

Yeah, I definitely think some of the classical transcendental idealists could be read as claiming that the universe is procedurally generated based on a starting facticity (roughly, the 'program,' the 'thing in itself') combined with a generation of the empirical world 'on the fly' as the knower's faculties come into contact with it.

And so as I suggest, the kind of world that does unfold before our questing gaze ought to be generated in some kind of accordance with our wishes. This becomes an empirical test (even if a reasonably modest one) of idealism as a metaphysical hypothesis.

But I guess that is simply standard. Realism is supported by the world's recalcitrant being. If we kick a stone, our toe still hurts, even if it seems more logical that it shouldn't if our preferences actually ruled.

So I wonder what kind of naturalism could explain the world that the idealist encounters? Why - at some deep level of metaphysical reasonableness - is this the world we generate?

And the failure of idealism to deliver a reasonable account on this point would be further reasonable evidence against idealism.

Quoting apokrisis

And so as I suggest, the kind of world that does unfold before our questing gaze ought to be generated in some kind of accordance with our wishes. This becomes an empirical test (even if a reasonably modest one) of idealism as a metaphysical hypothesis.

As far as I can see this doesn't follow or support realism. Idealism has never claimed, to my knowledge, that whatever you want to happen happens, nor do I see what would ever commit it to that.

Quoting darthbarracuda

How would the transcendental idealist or simulationist deal with the fact that accidents happen all the time? I could get struck by lightning and never see the bolt before it kills me.

The same way that your character can die, even if you don't want them to. As for it all ending, that can either happen on the game's terms (you lose a life and black out), or outside of the game's terms (the console or CPU crashes).

Reply to The Great Whatever From what I can tell, it's that idealism accounts for accidents only because what happens outside of our perceptions is dependent upon what happens within our perception. The unperceived is still given, but it is not given to the subject. idk this shit's confusing.

Quoting The Great Whatever

As far as I can see this doesn't follow or support realism. Idealism has never claimed, to my knowledge, that whatever you want to happen happens, nor do I see what would ever commit it to that.

And yet it follows that if the world is truly generated from a personal viewpoint, then there has to be some reasonable account of why that isn't the case.

Realism justifies itself on the grounds of recalcitrant nature. It is because the world shows no sign of coming from our point of view that we should believe it to be most likely real.

Quoting apokrisis

And yet it follows that if the world is truly generated from a personal viewpoint, then there has to be some reasonable account of why that isn't the case.

Why does that follow?

There's clearly a massive missing premise in this argument, which once you spell out I suspect you'll see is false.

Reply to The Great Whatever Why not spell it out?

Reply to apokrisis It's your proposed argument, so I can't do that for you. You have to tell me -- clearly there is no validly drawn conclusion as it stands, and I have no idea what's going on in your head that makes you think there is.

Reply to The Great Whatever What are you talking about? The grounding premise was that consistency would be a good thing. If your counter argument relies on a malicious deceiver - the faking of ancient dinosaur bones - then already it is weaker because of a lack of explanatory parsimony.

I agree that such arguments are avoided like hell by ontic idealists of course. :-}

Reply to apokrisis You're not following the conversation.

To reiterate, I am asking you to support the claim made here:

Quoting apokrisis

And yet it follows that if the world is truly generated from a personal viewpoint, then there has to be some reasonable account of why that isn't the case.

You made this statement unsupported. So why is it, then, that an idealist position commits one to needing an explanation as to why the world does not do whatever one wants it to? Even with things ontic realists readily admit are mind dependent, like dreams, no one thinks this is the case. So there seems to be no reason for this position, without another premise you're relying on.

Reply to The Great Whatever Sorry, did I miss the bit where you explained why it wouldn't be more parsimonious if wishes were indeed horses for idealists?

Quoting The Great Whatever

What you can take the old transcendental idealists to be saying is that roughly, life is like a video game in this way. The sense in which the unseen world is 'there' is the sense in which the material off the right side of the screen is 'there.

Yes, Michael could have been talking about Kant when he said...

Quoting Michael

Personally I think at first glance it's an elegant union of realism and idealism, gaining from their respective strong points and accounting for their respective weak points.

[quote=John]You're missing the point, which is that you are wanting to draw an analogy between reality and a computer program, but unwilling to acknowledge that the most significant thing about a computer program is that it has been intentionally programmed to be the way it is.

Algorithms in computer programs are created by programmers. If you posit there might be an algorithm that determines that when we dug somewhere we find fossils, implying that those fossils in no way existed prior to our digging, then your position requires an explanation for the existence of the algorithm.[/quote]

If I were Darwin, using breeding as an analogy to explain evolution, would I have to commit to there being a Great Breeder in the Sky?

And how is positing an algorithm that determines what we see when we dig any different to a physical law that determines what a particle will do when it interacts with another particle (or, more relevantly, what I will see when the rods and cones in my eyes interact with electromagnetic radiation)?

You're inconsistently applying the Watchmaker argument.

Reply to apokrisis You're not understanding me.

Reply to The Great Whatever And not caring either. You are playing the same old tunes I see.

Reply to Michael

Selective breeding's a very poor analogy for Darwinian evolution...and the world ain't like a watch either...
:-}

Reply to John Not to derail the discussion, but why do you think selective breeding is a very poor analogy?

Reply to jamalrob

I say that because selective breeding involves very definite purposes that determine changes, whereas the Darwinian model posits a complete lack of purpose.

The converse question would be 'why would anyone think selective breeding is a good analogy?'.

Reply to John Yes, but the analogy takes account of that. Whereas the selection of the traits you want in your pigeons is deliberate, the selection that drives evolution more generally is not directed, i.e., it is natural selection. One can see why Darwin thought it was a good analogy despite this fundamental difference.

Reply to jamalrob

Sure, but I'm not convinced that 'selection' is the right idea in relation to Darwin's Evolution, it is somewhat misleadingly oriented toward some notion of telos, which the model also wants to deny. I think it must have already been obvious to intelligent people long before Darwin that organisms that are more suitably equipped to survive in particular environments will be more likely to survive.

Darwin denied that the adaptations of organisms to environments can be inherited. That is no longer acceptable dogma due to developments in the understanding of epigenetics, but anyway, that is another story.

According to Neo Darwinism the mutations that lead to anatomical and physiological changes that bestow advantageous surviveability are utterly random. (This idea is also under question, not least because of the difficulty of defining what 'random' actually means in this context, but again that is another story). The point is that it is here, with this notion of 'randomness', that the analogy with selective breeding fails, because the changes brought about in the lattere are very carefully planned.

No, the analogy does not fail, because while the mutations themselves may appear randomly, those which bestow advantages do so owing to the conditions, whether they be imposed by human preference or by nature. The mutations that a human breeder selects from are random too. The idea is not that selection is random, but that mutations are random.

And this is the purest anachronism:

Quoting John

I think it must have already been obvious to intelligent people long before Darwin that organisms that are more suitably equipped to survive in particular environments will be more likely to survive.

Reply to jamalrob

No, the randomness, or non-randomness, of the mutations is not the salient issue.

The analogy doesn't hold because in the case of selective breeding there is no question of survival advantage but merely of which animals are chosen to breed. So the direction of the breeding program is foreordained and this is not analogous with the Darwinian model where there is no goal.

I certainly don't think it is an instructive or useful analogy. Sure, animals suited to survive survive, and animals with characteristics suitable for the goal of breeding are selected for breeding, if you want to say that is the substance of the analogy, then fine, but it is fairly trivial and it doesn't tell us anything much. If you disagree, can you say what you think the analogy actually shows us, that we didn't already know?

Of course you are free to think of it as a good analogy, if that is your wont; it is, after all, in the final analysis, merely a matter of interpretation.

Quoting John

This doesn't hold because in the case of selective breeding there is no question of survival advantage but merely of which animals are chosen to breed. So the direction of the breeding program is foreordained and this is not analogous with the Darwinian model where there is no goal.

I have to pull you up on this John. You made a bad mistake in your last post, irrelevantly contrasting the randomness of mutations with the directedness of selective breeding, but you haven't owned up to it, and here you just return to your original position, which I already addressed.

I see why you don't like the analogy and I can appreciate that. After all, the very problem with it that you've pointed out can sometimes be slightly misleading for people getting to grips with evolution, especially if they don't study it very deeply. Even so, it strikes me as the best analogy I have ever seen, and my suspicion is that those who treat it contemptuously--rather than critically--just don't really understand it.

But to answer your direct question: the analogy shows us that the traits that come to define species do so because the bearers of those traits survive to pass them on owing to their suitability to the conditions, i.e., the prevailing selection pressures. If you think this is trivial, you have the analogy to thank for that.

Quoting jamalrob

I have to pull you up on this John. You made a bad mistake in your last post, irrelevantly contrasting the randomness of mutations with the directedness of selective breeding, but you haven't owned up to it, and here you just return to your original position, which I already addressed.

I don't see that at all; I was contrasting the purposive selection of breeding with the (according to Darwin) non-purposive selection of evolution. If you think that I have said something which is "bad mistake" or which implies something I haven't "owned up to" then please point out the particular words you are referring to.

Also you're assertion that those who do not like the analogy do not understand is, frankly, insulting. I also don't think that what you claim the analogy shows is anything other than trivial because I think it is very implausible that intelligent people would not already, for thousands of years prior to Darwin, have understood very well that people and animals may be more or less well or ill suited to survive under different conditions.

Quoting John

If you think that I have said something which is "bad mistake" or which implies something I haven't "owned up to" then please point out the particular words you are referring to.

Here you bring up the contrast, not between the directedness of selective breeding and the blind process of natural selection, but between the directedness of selective breeding and the randomness of mutations:

Quoting John

The point is that it is here, with this notion of 'randomness', that the analogy with selective breeding fails, because the changes brought about in the lattere are very carefully planned.

And I've already explained why this is a mistake. Random mutations happen in both cases, and the difference is in how those mutations are selected, or if you prefer, how they come to survive and get passed on.

Quoting John

Also you're assertion that those who do not like the analogy do not understand is, frankly, insulting. I also don't think that what you claim the analogy shows is anything other than trivial because I think it is very implausible that intelligent people would not already, for thousands of years prior to Darwin, have understood very well that people and animals may be more or less well or ill suited to survive under different conditions.

That this was a fundamental mechanism of the creation of species, in the way that selective breeding is the mechanism of the creation of breeds, was utterly new to science and thought. Just what is it that you think Darwin actually discovered, if anything?

Reply to jamalrob

I'll reply in more detail later, as I am at work now, and even though I do have a bit of time to post due to weather conditions I am doing it on smart phone which is not ideal.

I was a bit hurriedly posting before as I should have been leaving for work and it appears I did erroneously run two ideas together which probably led to confusion.

I wanted to say that the changes brought about by environmental selection are random in the sense that they depend on contingent conditions whereas the changes brought about by selective breeding are not random in this sense but programmatic.

This is so regardless of whether the mutations that bring about the physiological changes are utterly random or not. To summarise, in the environmental selection case the physiological changes themselves are produced by random (contingent because purposeless) processes, whereas in the selective breeding case the physiological changes are very definitely directed towards an end.

Reply to John Thanks for clarifying John (though I think you might be conflating the two concepts yet again in your last sentence).

I agree it's important to keep in mind that natural selection is not directed towards an end as it is in artificial selection, but that's kind of obvious if you pay attention to Darwin's argument and doesn't really detract from the power of the analogy. The point of it is that there are selection pressures influencing the distribution of traits in populations, leading to the formation of species in one case and breeds in the other--no matter whether those selection pressures are directed or not.

I reread what I wrote, but couldn't see anything which I thought should lead you to you think I have "conflated the two concepts yet again", I'd be interested to know, though.

I think the most significant aspect of Darwin's theory is the novel hypothesis regarding the origin of species, as you allude to. But again I would say there is really a dis-analogy with selective breeding, because the latter, although it may produce truly remarkable morphological differences (think of dogs) it has never resulted in the formation of any new species. You can mate a Chihuahua with an St Bernard, and the result will be a reproductively viable offspring
canine.

I don't want to boringly repeat myself, but I think the idea that "selection pressures influencing the distribution of traits in populations" would have long been well understood because the heredity of traits had long been acknowledged (selective animal breeding likely goes back thousands of years) and it is an obvious step from what would have been the common observation that unfit animals are less likely to survive, to the idea that if you don't survive long enough you won't reproduce and pass on your heritable traits.

In short, I think Darwin's ideas, although quite clever, are overrated, unless you count the extent of his influence as a criterion for judging their quality. I think the extent of his influence, though, is due to the fact that his ideas have been overrated.

Quoting John

I reread what I wrote, but couldn't see anything which I thought should lead you to you think I have "conflated the two concepts yet again", I'd be interested to know, though.

Here:

Quoting John

To summarise, in the environmental selection case the physiological changes themselves are produced by random (contingent because purposeless) processes, whereas in the selective breeding case the physiological changes are very definitely directed towards an end.

You're contrasting physiological changes that occur in nature with those that occur in selective breeding. You say the former are "produced by random processes", but the latter are "directed towards an end".

If "produced by random processes" you're referring to mutations, then you're attempting to draw the distinction I criticized earlier (in summary, my criticism is that because random mutations are equally important in both cases, your distinction is a category error). But if you're referring to selection itself as somehow random, then you're wrong about: natural selection is not random. Or maybe you don't really mean random but just mean to emphasize the blind, purposeless nature of natural selection, in contrast to directedness, in which case we've already been through that: yes, because of this difference the analogy is slightly misleading if you take it to imply a guiding hand, but so long as we keep this in mind the analogy works well.

So you're doing at least one of these: conflating randomness with purposelessness, conflating mutations with selection, repeating yourself, or making the basic mistake of thinking that evolution is random. But it's difficult to know for sure because it's not clear what you're trying to say.

Quoting John

I don't want to boringly repeat myself, but I think the idea that "selection pressures influencing the distribution of traits in populations" would have long been well understood because the heredity of traits had long been acknowledged (selective animal breeding likely goes back thousands of years) and it is an obvious step from what would have been the common observation that unfit animals are less likely to survive, to the idea that if you don't survive long enough you won't reproduce and pass on your heritable traits.

If you think the basic idea of natural selection was obvious and unoriginal, then I'm not surprised you think Darwin is overrated. But you're simply wrong, notwithstanding your vague feeling that it's been known about for centuries. Just because you think it's obvious doesn't mean it has always been obvious.

Quoting jamalrob

You're contrasting physiological changes that occur in nature with those that occur in selective breeding. You say the former are "produced by random processes", but the latter are "directed towards an end".

Yes, that's exactly right; the former are produced by random (in the sense of 'not deliberate or not purposive' processes). Whether natural processes are really random or deterministic is a separate question.

If "produced by random processes" you're referring to mutations, then you're attempting to draw the distinction I criticized earlier (in summary, random mutations are equally important in both cases so the distinction is a category error).[/quote

But I already said I didn't mean to be referring to mutations, but rather to the processes of selection. As you already pointed out, and I agreed, the processes of mutation, irrespective of whether they are random of not, are the same in both cases.

[quote]But if you're referring to selection itself as somehow random, then you're wrong about: natural selection is not random. Or maybe you don't really mean random but just mean to emphasize the blind, purposeless nature of natural selection, in contrast to directedness, in which case we've already been through that: yes, because of this difference the analogy is slightly misleading if you take it to imply a guiding hand, but so long as we keep this in mind the analogy works well.

Natural selection is random in the sense I have been using, as I explained above. Of course it is not random insofar as fit animals always tend to survive better than unfit animals; and if it was random in this connection then there would be no such pattern of events. I don't know why you would think it is possible I was making a claim as obviously implausible as that. I do mean random in the sense of "the blind purposeless nature of ( Darwin's model of) natural selection". But I have already explained that several times. I'm still not convinced that, as you say, the analogy works well; I have already explained why I think the part of it that does make sense is fairly trivial, and you have given me no good reason to change my mind on that. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

So you're doing at least one of these: conflating randomness with purposelessness, conflating mutations with selection, repeating yourself, or making the basic mistake of thinking that evolution is random. But it's difficult to know for sure because it's not clear what you're trying to say.

I am not conflating randomness with purposelessness, but I was using it to mean that. This is a perfectly acceptable way to use the word. Random behavior is purposeless behavior, for example. I am not conflating mutations with selection, as I have already explained. I am repeating myself, since I have already explained. I have also tried to make it very clear what I have been trying to say; I don't expect you to agree, but I think there is no reason why you should not understand what I have been saying, however unfounded you might think it is.

Reply to jamalrob

Are you claiming that people had not known about heritable traits for centuries, if not millennia before Darwin? How long do you think selective animal breeding has been going on? Are you claiming that people would not have noticed that unfit animals tend to be less likely to survive than fit animals? The (I think fairly uncontroversial) claims that people had known about heritable traits and that they had noticed the tendency of less fit animals to fail to survive more often than fit ones are the basis of my "baseless intuition".

If you are not claiming either of these then what do you think is the significant advance in thinking Darwin made other than his conjecture about the origin of species (which is irrelevant to any analogy with selective breeding, since the latter does not produce species change so far as is known)?

Quoting John

Are you claiming that people had not known about heritable traits for centuries, if not millennia before Darwin? How long do you think selective animal breeding has been going on? Are you claiming that people would not have noticed that unfit animals tend to be less likely to survive than fit animals? The (I think fairly uncontroversial) claims that people had known about heritable traits and that they had noticed the tendency of less fit animals to fail to survive more often than fit ones are the basis of my "baseless intuition".

Even if people did know about these, it doesn't amount to the concept of natural selection. So I see no basis here at all.

Quoting John

If you are not claiming either of these then what do you think is the significant advance in thinking Darwin made other than his conjecture about the origin of species (which is irrelevant to any analogy with selective breeding, since the latter does not produce species change so far as is known)?

The advance is natural selection:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

I think I already understand the idea of natural selection. (I've read some of Dawkins and Gould and even read Origin of Species many years ago) so I don't want to spend time reading wiki. It is basically the idea that animals more suited to environments are more likely to survive and reproduce, and pass on their traits, and this leads to changes within species and even to new species (when there has been sufficient geographical isolation of populations) isn't it? If there is something more that you think is of significance you could just tell me. I'm here to engage with you, not to read Wiki.

Quoting John

I think I already understand the idea of natural selection. [...]

Yes that's pretty much the idea. Now we're left with your claim that the analogy with selective breeding is very poor, and your claim that natural selection is a trivial idea that was known about long before Darwin. Questioning the first claim I've tried to show that the analogy is a good one, but I haven't convinced you. I don't know what to do about the other claim except direct you to learn about the history of evolutionary thought, hence the link.

I think I've said all I can, so I'll duck out now and maybe the discussion will recover from this long digression. Sorry about that, Michael and others. :-#

Just to clear up a point I'm not claiming that the very specific idea of natural selection was formulated as such before Darwin, just that the common knowledge about variability and heritability make the leap to the idea of natural selection not all that surprisingly original.

In any case I don't think the digression has been irrelevant to the OP, because I think the purported analogy between reality and a computer program suffers much the same problem as that between natural selection and selective breeding insofar as the most significant defining thing about a computer program is that it is programmed, just as the most significant defining thing about a breeding program is that it is programmed. In Michael's view reality is not programmed, just as according to the Darwinian model natural selection is not programmed, and that is why I say they are both alike in being actually more significantly disanalogous than analogous with their purported analogues.